The air inside Mira's safehouse smelled faintly of old paper and machine oil. A dozen monitors glowed across the far wall, each displaying encrypted feeds, satellite maps, or live transmissions from unknown sources. Tangled cables snaked across the floor like veins, connecting steel-cased computers humming with unnatural warmth.
Caleb stepped inside, dripping rainwater onto the concrete.
Mira kicked the door shut behind him.
"Sit," she ordered.
Caleb remained standing. "Talk first."
She arched a brow. "Still paranoid."
"Still alive," he countered.
Mira rolled her eyes—then tossed him a towel. "Dry off. You're bleeding."
Caleb looked at his arm. He hadn't noticed the cut running from his wrist to his elbow. The pain hit a moment later, sharp and late—not uncommon when adrenaline was wearing off.
He tied the towel around the wound, applying pressure. "Start explaining."
Mira walked to her desk and tapped a few keys. A holographic screen flickered to life above her workstation. A rotating symbol appeared—an eight-pointed star crossed by a serpent.
Caleb stiffened.
"You're kidding."
"I wish I were," Mira replied.
The symbol belonged to an organization buried so deep in black-ops mythology that most operatives dismissed it as rumor.
A name whispered only by agents who'd lived long enough to regret it.
Null Division.
A ghost directive.
A kill-order machine.
A place where operations went to die—cleanly, silently, without trace.
Caleb took a step closer to the hologram. "Null Division was shut down years ago."
Mira shot him a cold look. "Caleb, you don't shut down something that never officially existed."
The room suddenly felt smaller.
Mira swiped through screens. Dozens of files, redacted lines, expunged reports, erased identities. All tied together in a web only Mira could untangle.
Caleb crossed his arms. "Why would Null Division target me?"
Mira paused. For the first time, her expression softened—close to concern.
"Because you did something you weren't supposed to," she said quietly.
"What?"
"You survived."
Caleb frowned. "Survived what?"
She pulled up another screen. A satellite image of a remote facility on fire. Smoke spiraling into the night sky. Bodies scattered in the snow like broken pieces of glass.
Caleb recognized it instantly.
"Operation Winterglass…"
Mira nodded.
"That's the one," she said. "Officially, Winterglass was a routine black-site extraction. Unofficially, it was a trap—designed by Null Division to eliminate everyone involved. Loose ends tied up."
"But we were ambushed," Caleb said. "A whole strike team. They wiped out everybody but me."
Mira met his eyes. "Exactly."
The memories clawed back with brutal clarity—the blizzard, the screaming alarms, the white-armored soldiers emerging from the snowstorm like ghosts. His teammates falling one by one. The explosion that buried the facility. Caleb dragging himself out of the wreckage with half-frozen hands.
"I thought it was the Syndicate…" he whispered.
"It wasn't," Mira said. "They were scapegoats. Convenient. Messy. They took the blame, while the real architects watched from behind layers of deniability."
Caleb clenched his fists. "So Null Division wants to finish the job."
Mira nodded. "And they've put a price on your head big enough to make half the underworld break formation just to chase it."
Caleb rubbed his jaw, pacing. "Any idea who placed the contract?"
Mira hesitated.
"Yes," she said softly. "But you're not going to like it."
"Try me."
Mira tapped a final key, and a face materialized on the screen—a man in his fifties, hair graying at the temples, eyes sharp and predatory. Someone Caleb knew better than almost anyone.
Someone he once trusted with his life.
Caleb's voice hardened.
"…Director Halden."
Mira exhaled slowly. "Your old handler. Your mentor. The man who built your entire career."
Caleb felt heat rise through his chest—a mixture of betrayal and something darker.
"Why would he burn me?" Caleb's voice was a low growl.
"Because," Mira said, "they don't need operatives with consciences. And you… you've been showing signs."
He stared at her. "Conscience?"
"You let that witness go during the Lagos operation," Mira said. "You refused to execute the defector in Prague. You pulled a civilian out of the blast radius in Hong Kong during a mission that needed zero evidence of interference."
Caleb scoffed. "So I'm a risk now?"
"No," Mira corrected. "You're human. That's the problem."
The realization hit him like a punch.
Halden hadn't been molding him into an elite operative.
He'd been shaping him into a weapon.
And weapons that go off-script… get dismantled.
Caleb sat down heavily, the weight of the truth settling over him like wet concrete.
Mira shut off the screen. The room dimmed again, shadows reclaiming the space.
"Listen," she said. "Null Division is a ghost. You can't attack it head-on. You can't expose it without being erased."
Caleb looked up. "Then how do I fight it?"
Mira smirked, leaning against the table. "You don't fight the entire thing. You go after one piece. The piece that's hunting you."
"Halden."
"Exactly."
Caleb inhaled slowly.
"You know where he is?"
Mira nodded once. "He's attending a closed-door meet tonight. High-level black market brokers. Arms dealers. Intelligence buyers. The kind of people who don't ask questions because they're too busy cashing in."
"Location?"
She tapped her tablet.
A map appeared.
A high-rise club atop an abandoned financial tower.
Neon.
Glass.
Private security.
No cameras.
Caleb felt the old fire return—the calculated, razor-edged resolve he had spent years trying to bury.
"What's the security like?" he asked.
"Sealed floors. Two dozen armed guards. Advanced biometric locks. Multiple choke points. And they'll be expecting trouble."
Caleb nodded.
"So the usual."
Mira smirked. "You've always had a talent for getting into places designed to keep you out."
He stood, adjusting his soaked jacket. "This time I'm not going in for intel. I'm going in for him."
Mira walked forward, placing a small, sleek device in his hand. "Then you'll need this."
Caleb examined it. "Pulse disruptor?"
"No," Mira said. "A ghost kill-switch. Cuts power, blinds cameras, disables weapons in a ten-meter radius for eight seconds."
"Eight seconds isn't much."
"It's all you're getting."
Caleb tucked the device into his belt. "You coming with me?"
Mira hesitated—then grabbed her coat and strapped a compact pistol to her thigh.
"If Halden set you up," she said, "then he'll have contingencies. And someone needs to cover your blind side."
Caleb nodded once.
They walked toward the exit.
Mira paused with her hand on the door.
"Voss?"
"Yeah?"
Her eyes were unusually calm.
Dangerously calm.
"Whatever happens up there," she said, "remember—once you cross this line, there's no going back."
Caleb held her gaze.
"There was no going back the moment they tried to erase me."
Mira pushed the door open.
The night swallowed them both.
End of chapter 3
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